to reunite them. it is farfrom it is far from clear how that will be done and if it is even possible. nearly 200 people are still missing after a ferry sinks in indonesia. the captain has been detained for questioning. the vessel could only carry 60 passengers. argentina's hopes of reaching the knock—out stages of the world cup suffer a blow after a 3—0 defeat to croatia. argentina could still qualify, but only through goal difference. now on bbc news: hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk.

i'm stephen sackur. one issue, more than any other, is polarising european politics and dividing the european union — migration. in germany it threatens angela merkel‘s grip on power. from italy to austria, to hungary and poland, it is driving policies and threatened to smash continental consensus. my guest karin kneissl is the foreign minister in austria's right—wing nationalist coalition government. are europeans finding their authentic voice or is a dangerous brand of populism poisoning politics? karin kneissl, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for the invitation. thank you forjoining us from vienna. i think we have to begin with migration. opinion surveys across europe show it is now the european public‘s number one concern. they appear to be apprehensive, they appear to be frightened about immigration. and, yet, the numbers of immigrants coming into europe year on year, right now, are actually going down.

so how can you explain the rising apprehension? well, we have seen the year 2015, and i think one of the main reasons why british voters voted to say yes to brexit was because there was a sensation of loss of control and that was exactly what happened in 2015—2016, it was only two years ago and we should not forget there are about 4 million refugees, syrian refugees, in turkey, that we have about 60 million young people in north africa, the middle east, who won't find employment, so we have a demographic we have a geopolitical reasoning to be aware that migration is not something that was one year, around, 2015, it will continue. let me just recall the dialogue of the world economic forum, which dates back already to ten years ago, it said in 2008, number one, imminent threat to global security is the income gap, is the wealth problem. yep.

sure. this is something that continues. nobody denies, on a global scale, nobody denies that the movement of people, the migration factor is an immensely challenging phenomenon. but i am looking at the figures. the figures are extraordinary. frontex, the eu's border agency says that 43,000 individuals have entered from outside of europe, january until may, 2018, that is about half, half the figure from 2017, and yet i come back to this point that the fear of immigration is rising and the un refugee chief says that is precisely because european politicians are indulging in what he calls "despicable scaremongering". and i think he would include your government in that. well, we don't consider ourselves

as people who want to create panic, but we want, simply, to bear in mind that we are speaking of an increase, for instance, when we speak of incoming figures increase it's about plus 140%, when we compared to last year's figures. when we speak about bosnia—herzegovina, we speak of a multiplication of hundreds of percents, so we shouldn't simply look at the incoming figures on a day to day basis, but of when we remember what was the case in spring 2015, the then minister of the interior of austria warned against the rising migration and her warnings were not taken serious and things then became more serious by the end of august 2015. well, you keep coming back to 2015.

the basic fact is that right now numbers are much lower this year than they were last year. what we have are instances increasingly of european nations abandoning any collective approach to dealing with the migration challenge and operating in what they see as their own national interest, the most recent example of that would be the new italian government's refusal to accept the landing of the refugee boat, the aquarius, with 629 men, women, and children on board. in austria, do you see this now as a time for your government to pursue its own national interest, rather than europe's collective interest? no. let me recall our common efforts, and we work here in tandem with partners such as denmark or the netherlands, it's not only italy. there is a number of european union member states with whom we work in tandem and we had this morning, for instance, a visit in vienna by european parliamentarians and there is an awareness, i would say, that goes

across all political segments that migration is something that will remain with us. you personally described angela merkel as taking an action which amounted to share negligence, back in 2015, when she opened the border and allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees to come into germany. you described it as negligence. and the leader of the freedom party in austria, which is the party that appointed you, nominated you, i should say, to be foreign minister. the leader of that party described angela merkel as the most dangerous woman in europe. is that still your position, negligence, and his position that she's a danger to europe? well, i have said, back in 2015, when the decision was taken to not

any more send back, according to the dublin iii agreement, people from syria, iraq, and afghanistan, that was the decision taken on friday 11th of september 2015. i sat down in news discussion that this will cause problems, because it was a fairly unilateral decision. there was no consultation taken among other european partners. and when you ask me now about a collective european approach, ijust imagined that not only that on a governmental level we are working together, the austrian authorities, as of january 2016, had started to co—operate with their executive colleagues, whether it was police forces, army, or others, both in serbia, hungary, and in particular macedonia, because there were several european governments who decided not to have nasty pictures in their backyards. so the nasty pictures were pushed to the macedonian—greek border

and nasty pictures had to happen somewhere else. so our approach is to pre—empt a replay of what we have seen before. if i may say so, your approach appears to be based upon the building of walls, ever higher more protective walls around austria... no, it's not. excuse me, sir, i'm you hear, no austrian politician has ever spoken of building a wall. can you please give me the quote? i am not talking about quotes. i am talking about what we see. you have spent a lot of money fortifying your borders. that is what you have been doing for the last two or three years. it is not about our borders. it is about the schengen space border. in contrast to the united kingdom, austria is part of the schengen space. so what does schengen mean? it means liberty of movement, but you can only cross from one border to the other.

we now have border control on the german—austrian border going from salzburg to bavaria. it's the german authorities who control the borders there. it's on the same level that we are working together our partners from hungary, serbia, slovenia, croatia, and elsewhere to embark on this common... interesting, interesting, you tell me it is all about protecting the freedom of movement principle, you know full well that in germany right now there is a major debate, a huge problem for angela merkel, because her own interior minister, the leader of the christian social union in bavaria wants the right to take people who have arrived in germany but were previously registered somewhere else in european union, he wants to force them out of germany back the country they were first registered in. this principle of freedom of movement across the schengen area is being challenged.

you, in your government, appear to be backing mr seehofer, the interior minister and other countries, such as the so—called visegrad countries in eastern europe, who simply do not believe in burden sharing. so the austrian government clearly isn't adopting a collective approach at all. it's becoming a much more nationalistic approach. excuse me. may i correct here... no, excuse me, sir. austria, according to per capita immigration, we have taken, after sweden, the highest number of migrants over the last years. so please don't tell us that we are not participating in burden sharing. i'm telling you the truth, which is that right now you appear to be backing the visegrad countries, that is, of course, the czech republic, slovakia, hungary, poland, who refuse burden sharing, the european commission says they're violating the norms of the european union, and you appear to be backing them. if i ma elaborate here a little further, because it is what we have said and what chancellor sebastian kurz has pointed out,

when you want to tackle the issue of illegal migration, and i really would like to highlight illegal, because you are simply speaking about migration. we have various ways of legal migration coming to austria. we have taken up a high number of political asylum seekers, not only over the last years, but it's a tradition in austria ever since 1956, we do it in 1968 during the prague spring, etcetera, but we are saying we do not believe that a simple distribution of people who have come from which ever parts can be redistributed according to a quota system and this is the magic bullet, the silver bullet solution, that, we say... chancellor kurz. .. ..that you have to think in a border way. yeah. chancellor kurz is, of course, very aware that austria is soon going to assume the presidency of the european council. and he has suggested that we need to fundamentally shift our approach, that is the eu's approach

to the migration challenge. some in your country, including the interior minister, have talked about a paradigms shift, a copernican revolution, so what on earth is austria's big idea for getting europe out of this migration mess? because for the simple reason that the current asylum system that we still work with was created in a pre—globalised world. we have now a completely different form of communication and mobility on a global level. so what we have to do is to update, to adapt instruments which are at our disposal, whether it's the so—called dublin iii agreement, which you just mentioned, when it comes to people who have been registered in one eu country for their cases to be dealt there. they are not supposed to go then onto the next eu country. when we speak of upkeeping a schengen space, for all that we need not only a protection of our external borders, and we are not speaking about the austrian borders, we are speaking about the external

borders of the european union, and we are speaking also about... so it's the donald trump approach. you basically built higher and higher walls around the european union, is that that idea? no, not at all. if you just had let me finish the phrase. what we want to prevent its people, for whatever their human smugglers promised them, get on a boat, and think that they have, that there is, in the stalinist approach, that whoever is the fittest to cross the mediterranean will arrive in europe, that we want to pre—empt and change. when the minister of interior or the chancellor says we need a different system, it is a system of consulting people in the countries of origin and to have resettlement done together with the international

organisation of migration together with the un agency or other un agencies and to consult people, make authorities come to their countries of origin and not have daily drowning of people by having them come to see the authorities, whether it's in germany or elsewhere. that's our approach. please don't come up with your repeating words. it's not a question of what i think, but a question of what people in your own country think. here's the words of the austrian opposition leader, matthias strolz, who said recently that chancellor kurtz and the government, of which you are a part, is itself part of a dangerous nationalist populist movement in europe, you can name people like people like viktor 0rban, chancellor kurtz, matteo salvini in italy, the leader of the league, which says it wants to register all roma in italy and deport those who do not have regular papers. excuse me, you can continue with the quote. may i give you, may i... mr strolz is just about to take a holiday from political life. he was in politics for about four, five years.

and you know what mr matthias strolz has was also been repeating in the last few months, he was warning against civil war in europe because of the asylum crisis. this gentleman you have quoted is talking about that. i want you to address his point there is, right now, a dangerous nationalist populist movement sweeping europe with elements inside your own government with connections to the far right, the extreme right, members of the freedom party... it is distasteful to mention what you are coming up with. it is just a statement without concrete examples. can you give me a concrete example of ministers of the freedom party, i am not a member of it, but ministers, including the vice chancellor, when you cannot illustrate what you have been accusing them of. please give me an example. i did not say it was ministers, i said people inside the freedom party. you know it is the case.

it has asked sympathetic historians in the country to conduct a commission of enquiry to look into links of nazi fraternities, nazi associations... like any political... going back to the 1950s. if you want to talk about specifics, the leader of the party, you only have to look at his record, things he has said over the years, including, for example, in 2012, posting an anti—semitic cartoon on his own facebook aged showing a banker with a large hook nose. that is what they still have. i can only say that, when it comes to the ministers i work with in this current government, i have not observed over the last two years, ever since i have been in touch with the freedom party, any anti—semitic statement. that that is my personal observation. right, but... and i myself...

you are not denying the initial press premise, people are looking in austria seeing the freedom party winning 26% of the vote, holding key ministries, including defence and interior, and nominating you, independent, but nominating you to the foreign ministry. people in europe worry about that. yes. you mentioned that this party has now nominated a historian. every party party in the last 10—15 years has done the same. they have had ministerial archives opened in order to get in touch with the past. the same was undertaken by the socialist party and the conservative party. so maybe it is, umm...

i know from history classes also how high was the enthusiasm in the 1930s going up to the highest rank in... umm... circles in the uk, in particular, in aristocratic circles, how enthusiastic they were for national socialism. so we can always go back, but at least let us stay in the present times, because we can continue accusing each other of our past here and there. i have assumed this office. i spent about two years in israel writing my phd there. i speak arabic and hebrew. so if you can get hold of a single anti—semitic quote of myself i would like to see it. minister, if i wanted to put a charge to you personally i would have done it. it is not about you adore and i am

not suggesting for a moment it is. it is about the freedom party. but as a spokesperson, yeah, i can only repeat myself. if you want to bore the audience... ok, let's move on. let's talk about russia before closing this interview. 0k. russia is an important part of collective foreign policy—making in europe as well. it doesn't strike me as a little difficult for you that again the party that nominated you, that holds some of the key positions in the government, signed a pact with vladimir putin's party, united russia, some years ago, still in place, as far as i understand, so senior members of your government have a friendship pact with vladimir putin's party at a time europe sees russia as a fundamental security threat. is that a problem? this is again something i cannot answer because i am not a member of the party. what i can explain to

you is the following... the defence minister is! yes, but, i am sorry, i did not get your question on that. huh. what i would like to highlight is we had president putin and a number of ministers from foreign affairs, like sergey lavrov, my counterpart, here a few weeks ago. what you mentioned was not at all on the agenda. we have other topics to talk about because we would like to see cooperation, as a minister of foreign affairs, with russia, where there is a need to work together. it is about the middle east, it is about north africa. it is perhaps even about migration. a host of european nations joined britain in expelling diplomats, russian so—called diplomats, i would call them spies, after the poisoning of a former russian agent in the uk,

sergey skripal, in the uk is sure it was russia. why did austria choose not to join others in expelling diplomats and sending a clear signal to moscow? we have ten countries in the eu but decided not to expel diplomats. and in my case, as minister of foreign affairs, i took the decision not to expel any diplomat for the simple reason that we are opposed to a series of international organisations. the building you can see behind me, every thursday, within the framework of the organisation, the security and co—operation of europe, 5a participating states meet each other. among them, the russian federation and the us. and in times of rising confrontation, there is a tremendous need to remain in. i understand diplomacy is notjust about presenting policy briefing notes to each other,

but remaining in direct contact. that can be done in the permanent council at the building behind me. in an interview behind you use said communications have not worked with sanctions and we need to stop sanctions and normalise the relationship with russia. austria is not on the same page as london, berlin, paris, on this key strategic challenge facing europe. excuse me, we are on the same page completely. that is because we are all, as eu members, always reiterating that it is about the minsk agreement and ukraine. long ago you described brexit as a disaster, clearly regretted. when you look at the position of your government in europe, i wonder whether you feel,

if things do not go the way you hope they go in europe in the coming years, not least on migration policy, but a host of other things as well, austria, one day, you think, consider leaving the european union? interestingly enough, the pressure that is now a rising around the uk's ago negotiations with the eu, that has changed public opinion. people are seeing the pressure and the uncertainty. so, i would say, overall with austria, you will find very few people who are in favour of quitting the eu. that was a different case back in the year 2000 when austria was sanctioned because of the then government, for instance.

of the remaining 27, there is a desire to have a cohesion, but not only among politicians, but also among citizens, about what it means to be european. we have to end it there. thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. hello, our weather's warming up. i know that's not music to everyone's ears, but it's on its way.

21.3 celsius was thursday's top temperature, in hampshire, but for a time next week, the hot spots will be getting closer to 30 celsius. now, not everyone is getting that hot, but temperatures will widely be in the low to mid—20s, with plenty of dry, sunny weather, with high pressure in control. we've cooled things down a little bit in recent days, with this flow of air from the north—west. but we're about to lose that as high pressure moves right in across the uk, allowing the warmer weather in with the sunshine, and those temperatures will build day on day. but there will be a chill in the air first thing friday morning for early risers, as temperatures overnight dip down into single figures quite widely, but those temperatures are heading up as the day goes on. light winds, though still a noticeable breeze across northern scotland, with some cloud around, in the far north of scotland and the northern isles. a bit of high cloud may be turning things hazy for parts of wales,

south—west england, but for most, it's sunshine on the way. still from the north—west, breeziest for northern scotland. very high uv and pollen levels, particularly in the england and wales, adding a degree or so to the temperature compared to recent days, with some get into the low 20s — 21, 22 degrees. under clear skies on friday night and into saturday morning, while maybe a bit of patchy cloud across parts of scotland, but largely clear skies. fairly rapid wind and the temperatures dip again, into single figures for some of us. but i don't think quite as chilly on saturday morning, compared with friday morning. so that sets the scene for the weekend, what's going on. i talked about high pressure moving in across the uk, and here it is, although at the start of the weekend, eagle eyes will notice this weather system moving on through northern scotland. so of course, that's going to bring more breeze, more cloud here, and the further north you are into the northern isles, some outbreaks of rain on saturday. and there'll be some high cloud elsewhere, so not necessarily clear blue sky. the sun will be hazy at times. nevertheless, temperatures will have risen a little bit more, particularly into parts of england and wales. and then for part two of the weekend, on sunday, early rain clears away from shetland, and then it is largely sunny all the way.

dry, very light winds, and widely on sunday, temperatures will be into the low 20s. and again into next week, with high pressure sticking around, along with the sunshine, the temperatures are edging up a bit further, more into the mid—20s. but yes, some as the heat builds will see that temperature reaching into the upper 20s, to near 30 celsius. that's your latest forecast. this is the briefing. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories: confusion over donald trump's plan to reunite migrant children with their parents. it's not clear how or if it can be done. the un refugee agency calls for urgent action as more people are killed trying to make the sea crossing to europe. how the sahara is becoming the new frontline in the so—called war on terror. we travel with us special forces in mali. hello. i'm lucy hockings at the world cup in moscow. it's day nine of the competition. messi's argentina lost 3—0 to

croatia last night. details soon. in business, plane speaking. airbus says it may quit britain if it leaves the eu without a deal.